Semiconductor IP News and Trends Blog
Wireless IP Grows in Surprising Ways
While growing, analog and wireless IP usage may face challenges in manufacturing preferences at lower nodes and emerging LTE technology trends.
Does it even need to be stated that mobile data rates are growing at amazing rates? In-Stat’s reports a doubling of mobile data every year, like Moore’s Law on steroids.
Interactions that were once measured in weeks or months now occur in an Internet minute via YouTube, Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media applications. This accelerate connectedness is all thanks to the rise of mobile devices. In fact, IHS iSuppli recently notes that shipments of Internet-based consumer devices are expected to exceed those of traditional PC platforms for the first time in 2013.
An Internet Minute - courtesey of Intel.
This unprecedented growth in mobile “everything” translates to a huge potential market for analog and wireless IP in both front-end mobile devices and back-end platforms that service them. For the designers of both ends, the challenge is to provide greater bandwidth at lower power and for faster deployment cycles.
Chris Rowen, the founder and CTO of Tensilica, sees this trend taking an interesting turn in 2012 – (quote from David Manner’s blog):
High-bandwidth and low cost help LTE wireless make it a strategic alternative outside of traditional cellular networks – to DSL, cable and broadcast for living room platforms, for home/business femtocells, and for machine-to-machine networking, for example in smart meters.
Mobile data usage is affected by the proximity of a device to a cell tower. Small cells are needed where additional large cell towers (macrocells) would be impractical. In-Stat reports that there will be, “160.3 million active small cells, and the retail value of small cell shipments will reach $14 billion by 2015.”
These numbers have not gone unnoticed by SoC and semiconductor IP vendors. For example, Intel’s latest Crystal Forest technology announcement is aimed squarely at the back-end telecommunication manufacturers, operators and service providers. The Sandybridge-based processor chip of Crystal Forest is set at the 22 nm node, while the second chip containing the IO, memory controller and accelerators lies at a 32nm geometry.
[Sidenote: Manner’s examines the manufacturing process note imbalance at Intel concerning digital verses wireless ICs.]
ARM – Intel’s competitor in the mobile space – claims to have 95% of the worldwide LTE baseband designs. ARM partners, like Qualcomm, Renesas Mobile, Broadcom and even Intel Mobile (Infineon?) contribute to the analog and wireless portion of the ecosystem.
From in-home cells to LTE front- and back-end technology, analog and wireless IP vendors will have a busy future.
